Candidates for SA CCAS Undergraduate Senator (1 position)

Zachary Graybill

Background:I grew up in Santa Fe New Mexico and came to GW to study Systems Engineering. I'm a strong believer the power of diversity to shape one's life. I'm living proof. I had the great luck to rub shoulders with a wide array of people from many disparate backgrounds and that experience has shaped my outlook on life. With so many people with different ideas my appreciation for discussion and conversation grew. This exchange was massively influential in my life.Do you think the university should be more transparent in its budget, operations, and strategic planning processes?Yes we as the student body are the most important part of the school. Decisions made that affect us should be explained to students and the process of coming to these decisions should be open and available for student input. Getting the University to lay out this plan is important and the lobbying efforts must be there. Equally important is creating a space where students can easily see how these decisions are made in a way that is useful to them not as a link to a long PDF. So having a resource that can explain the decisions and why they are made is vitally important. Similarly, what can be done to ensure more transparency within the Student Association?The job of the Student Association is to provide a voice and advocate for the students. A SA that is not transparent to students is not useful. The simplest way for the SA to remain a voice for the students is showing the student body what they are doing by posting minutes, agendas, and the other associated paper work. How would you work to increase student awareness of existing university services that many are often not aware of?The services provided by the school are amazing in many respects but students often miss them because they are hidden so creating a directory of services available to students seems like a no brainer. This directory will need to be straight forward and simple and something that is useful to students. It should also be widely advertised as the one stop shop for all of the needs of students. Is the affordability of a GW education an important issue to you? Why?Yes, GW prides itself on diversity our promotional materials list the wide range of ways in which our student body shows off its diversity. One of the less trumpeted topics is socioeconomic diversity. If our University locks out those with limited means we are limiting the range of voices, ideas, and points of view on campus. Thus we hobble our student body and create an echo chamber where we only hear our same ideas back. How will you advocate for increased university attention to student needs (whether related to academics, housing, health, student organizations, campus life, etc) while keeping in mind that increased spending on such initiatives could lead to higher costs of attendance for future students?The balancing act is important to recognize. The way to do that is with frank discussion with all parties about the priorities and need of them all. This compromise will hopefully represent the widest possible group of individuals, the immediate student needs are meet while excessive spending and finical burden is minimized. What are ways you would advocate for lower costs of attendance at GW (such as tuition and fees, housing, dining, charges for services, printing, SA fees, etc)?The ways in which the school costs students essentially nickels and dimes us. Small costs pilling up over time. To lower these costs each should be looked at individually and gone over for excessive charges. Once these charges are identified bring them up and work with those individuals and organizations costing student and have a discussion with them about lowering or eliminating the charges. This will likely not make everything better instantly but over time a methodical approach will render the best results. What are your thoughts on the new requirement that Juniors in the Class of 2018 and onward live on campus? How will you advocate for inexpensive housing alternatives to defray the impact of this policy?Requiring that Juniors live on campus is wrong. I think that the option is great but the limitation of student choice is wrong. This policy is here now though so the question turns to how we deal with it. The best way to mitigate this issue to widen choice, give students a wider spectrum of hosing to choose from. As well as provide pressure on GW housing to lower costs to students. How will you advocate for increased university engagement with students related to budgets and strategic planning?Most of the budgets and plans that the University comes up with don't end up in students hands. Getting this information to students is important so on top of lobbying efforts I would find or create a place where students can see this material and get some understanding from it. This place would not just show the material but provide short summaries and take aways so the information is easily digestible and we can go about our busy schedules.

Do you supportGW Not For Profit’s proposalfor non-voting student representatives on the financial committees of the Board of Trustees?Yes, a mechanism to help students understand how their University works and the process would be invaluable. To further engage the Board of Trustees their should be a system where students can ask questions and the board answers. These questions and answers should be posted alongside the budget and planing information so that students have one place they can go to get any questions about the board the University or its finances answered. How will you, in the position you are seeking on the SA, personally listen to the needs of students and their organizations?I will have an open door policy to students and their organizations. As a member of the SA it would be my job to voice concerns and bring discussions about what is best for students. If any student has an idea or problem that they think the SA could help with I would love to talk with them and see how we could work to fix their problem and build a better University.